Wednesday, 14 May 2014

Olympiad trouble?

While I am loathe to jump in early with the "OMG!!! The sky is falling" type stories, there is some new coming out of Norway concerning the 2014 Olympiad. The Organisers has a request for additional funding knocked back by the Norwegian government and as a result are having to reassess some organisational aspects. According to this report from tv2.no the worst case is that the Olympiad would not take place in Tromso.
I suspect that if worse comes to worse the Olympiad will still take place in Tromso, and the doomsday claims are about getting the government to tip some more money into the event. However if the money is not forthcoming, then the organisers may have to economise. This has happened in previous Olympiads, most recently Dresden, where the loss of a major sponsor resulted in a much tighter budget. The most noticeable effect was in the area of accommodation, but even then I thought the event (and the amenities) was perfectly OK.
As this is just breaking news there is no doubt some official announcements to come (from FIDE and the organisers). Hopefully things will become clearer sooner than later, as a number of countries have already made their travel plans for August!